


I've got the words in my heart

by almightydork (earthsmightiestdorks)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon - Manga, Domestic Fluff, Drabble, Fluff, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Mild Language, Soulmates, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25408078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthsmightiestdorks/pseuds/almightydork
Summary: You can understand any language your soulmate speaks. However, statistically, most soulmates are from the same location and speak the same language, so it goes unnoticed...Most of the time.Kenma lets Hinata stay at his place during his preparation for the MSBY Black Jackals' tryouts when he comes back from Brazil.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma
Comments: 10
Kudos: 271





	I've got the words in my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bleedingrainbows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleedingrainbows/gifts).



> My brain came up with a supposedly dumb soulmate system concept, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to write so... I started brainstorming with friends and this came to be. 
> 
> This is basically Kenma finding out Shouyou is his soulmate... in a very unconventional way I suppose, haha
> 
> The title is from Charlie Winston's 'Tongue Tied', which I thought was very fitting to this polyglot theme. 
> 
> Enjoy! ♥
> 
> Huge thanks to [August](https://archiveofourown.org/users/augustgreatsword) for the beta!

Shouyou is… Loud.

He’s always been loud, and energetic, and intense in a way Kenma cannot withstand for extended periods of time. 

And ever since Shouyou’s come back from training in Brazil, he’s become even more… everything. He’s just _more_. 

He wonders hourly why he agreed to let him stay over in his place while he prepares for the Black Jackals’ tryouts.

Kenma is absentmindedly making his way to the bathroom when he hears something breaking in the kitchen and sighs, dreading the situation already. 

Surely enough, he is met with Shouyou frantically wiping whatever it was that filled the glass he’s knocked onto the floor, murmuring words Kenma can’t quite shape into words in Japanese. 

Leaning against the doorway, Kenma watches him for a moment, amused by the way Shouyou can’t seem to decide which part of the floor he wants to wipe first, his hair messy from him shaking his head non-stop in frustration. 

Kenma feels his chest getting warmer for no apparent reason and shakes his head in unconscious response.

“Shouyou…” he calls, and his friend-slash-beneficiary snaps his head up towards the entrance, eyes wide and mouth gaping. 

“I’m so, so, so sorry, Kenma,” he starts, sitting back on his heels and leaving the wiping cloth over the orange puddle. “I got distracted dancing, and I accidentally bumped the table I’d set the glass on to go prepare a sandwich. I promise I’ll clean it though,” he adds and promptly goes back to wiping. 

Kenma sighs. “Shouyou, it’s okay,” he says, but it’s lost to Shouyou’s music. Kenma frowns, then sighs, then gently taps the other on the shoulder. 

“Yes?” Shouyou asks, lifting one side of his headphones off his ear. 

“Get up, you can tidy this later, I don’t mind. Let’s play something.”

“Oh, okay,” Shouyou concedes, letting Kenma pull him up back on his feet. Walking to the guest gaming room, Kenma feels eyes on his back. He looks back and, as expected, Shouyou’s eyes are on him and his mouth is bent in the shape of a gentle smile. 

Kenma looks straight ahead, feels his heart skip a beat, and shivers. Probably altogether, though he can’t exactly tell. 

He boots up his console and starts Mario Kart, and soon they’re off. 

Shouyou is humming a tune constantly, low and under his breath, but next to him Kenma catches it every time the TV goes silent between tracks. 

When Shouyou starts shaking in his seat, Kenma pauses the game and turns to him.

“Kenma?” Shouyou asks, his tone confused and both the humming and the shaking - dancing, maybe? - gone. 

“That was the same thing you were listening to when you knocked down the glass,” he says rather than asks. 

Shouyou blushes and smiles sheepishly before nodding. 

“What is it?”

“Oh, it’s, uh, a Brazilian anime funk parody. They’re quite popular there, and the rhythm is great for dancing.”

Kenma hums and tilts his head to the side. “Show me?”

Shouyou blinks in surprise but eventually smiles an amused grin. “Okay!” he beams, fishing his phone from his pocket and opening Spotify. 

It starts with a flute and a man talking that Kenma can’t immediately understand, and then the melody starts to be accompanied by a beat and someone… singing? rapping? It’s certainly different from what he’s used to. 

He starts to nod his head in the rhythm without meaning to, and notices he’s done so when Shouyou giggles, amused. 

As the song goes on, he starts to recognize some words, names of characters and places and weapons and skills, words he’s very familiar with from years of reading Naruto on Shonen Jump. 

The song continues playing, Shouto starts to mouth the lyrics absentmindedly, and Kenma starts to hear trivial words like ‘tail’ and ‘snake’. He frowns, wondering why is a Brazilian dude singing in Japanese. 

Until he realizes _he isn’t._

‘ _Nós tira seu demônio e te bota a piroca_ ’¹ is the first complete sentence he understands, and the crudeness of it is enough to cloud his brain to the fact that he just understood Brazilian Portuguese.

“Shouyou, what the hell? How can you listen to this?”

Shouyou pauses the music and stares at Kenma, confused. “It’s just for fun… Kenma, I didn’t know you spoke Portuguese.”

“What? I don’t, the only foreign language I speak is basic English for international str-” it dawns on him mid-sentence. 

You can understand any language your soulmate speaks. 

But he’s watched Brazilian volleyball matches before, when he was younger, and couldn’t understand anything the commentators were saying. So his soulmate probably learned the language later on in life.

Learned it later on in life and is sitting right there in front of him. 

Kenma sighs as Shouyou smiles at him knowingly. 

“Don’t say a word.”

“Hey there, soulmate.”

Kenma sighs again, stuffing a pillow against his face. 

He can already hear Kuroo’s merciless teasing from the fact that perpetual energy ball Hinata Shouyou is his soulmate. 

Then Shouyou kisses his cheek and laughs, and it’s cute, and maybe the whole thing won’t be so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> ¹: "We exorcise your demon and stuff you with a dick", in typical Brazilian Funk style. 
> 
> If you, too, want to know this peak example of Brazilian culture, check the song out (Caution: very explicit language to anyone who speaks Portuguese and its mutually intelligible languages): <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UCNAY8SUqY>


End file.
